Hey, what do you know? We’re in the tail end of 2010 and we’ve only had one Guitar Hero release! Am I imagining things? Is it the apocalypse yet? The balance of the universe has shifted somehow… All joking aside, Activision and Neversoft promised to create a more focused, single effort with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, the 6th main entry in the popular music game franchise. So, did focusing all of their creative efforts on a single title help the game bounce back and regain its focus?
Continuing from previous years, gamers can grab their plastic instruments, (or pick up this year’s model of toys,) and rock out on drums, vocals, bass and of course, guitar by hitting the notes as they descend on color-coded screen. Since this is the only possible way for most of us to be rock stars without having to put in the effort to learn a real instrument or sell our souls, it still stands strong as a party favorite, especially with over 90 songs and an expanded GH Tunes feature to create your own content. Drop out play returns from last year, as well as the objectives within each track to give players individual goals. The online features also got a full band expansion for certain modes, and a new twitter like feed lets you follow what your friends are doing within the GH universe. Gone however, is last year’s career mode which integrated these mini-chievements into the experience and the celebrity caricatures with them. What’s in its place is something completely different… or so it seems.
Every year, the main Guitar Hero titles have added a major feature to try and add variety to the tried (tired?) and true game play, (i.e. distracting you from the fact that you’re playing the same game over again.) This year, your favorite virtual rockers are becoming warriors, but not just any warriors… WARRIORS OF ROCK! Ahem… so the story goes that a legendary battle between the Demigod of Rock and something known as The Beast raged on for years. When the Demigod is seemingly defeated, he calls out to the greatest rockers in the world to help him win the battle and transform them into soldiers to basically do his bidding so he won’t have to. Each Guitar Hero character within this mode has an individual perk that serves various functions. Some might generate Star Power, (the point boost power up if you’ve never played these games,) some might go past the point multiplier cap and some have extra health for example. The individual rockers have their own mini set lists that they have to earn a certain number of ranking stars in to boost their power and earn their warrior transformation. These powers even carry over to quick play modes to add a certain freshness to the potentially stale formula. While these features may rock hard at first though, they bring along new problems that prevent me from wanting an encore.
Remember how I mentioned that the characters have their own set lists? Yes, this is one of the most annoying parts of the quest. Within a game featuring so many songs and an entire downloadable library, why am I stuck with playing seven or eight songs that I don’t like just to advance? Being so limited makes it even more apparent that the difficulty of the songs is all over the place. Neversoft promised to get back to the roots of the series by focusing on difficult guitar charts, but you’ll go from excruciatingly easy to frustratingly hard within the same set. There’s really no balance in the difficulty within quest mode, so even though you can raise or lower the challenge level, I’d rather have a natural progression that didn’t force me to stop the game after every few songs.
Some of these problems carry over to the rest of the game as well, since the focus on guitar does show to the point of featuring many songs lacking in any real drum or vocal presence. You don’t necessarily need to kick your drummer out of the band, but he or she might feel a little left out. Besides, the biggest problem with the game is the one that’s plagued it all along. There’s very little that’s new here. Despite their efforts, the game feels more scattered and hazy than a night with the groupies, on top of feeling like it’s all been done before, more than a few times, by you.
So in the end, it seems like Guitar Hero has turned out like many of the bands it’s featured. They hit it big, got a bit of an ego and branched out on multiple projects. After tours with Van Halen, Aerosmith Metallica and Taylor Swift didn’t pan out, the group tried to focus on their roots. Just like with real bands though, it’s still sounds like the same, tired sound. If you’re a Guitar Hero fan, I’m sure you’ve already made up your mind about purchasing this, but if you feel it’s played one hit too many, there’s nothing here that will change your mind. If you’re willing to pay $60 for essentially a new mode and a very large track pack however, then have at it. Warriors of Rock does enough to please its loyal fans when it’s all said and done, but most of the bandwagon has already moved on, and I’m not sure this does enough to lure them back.